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Wednesday, 5 January 2011

It's common knowledge that if you want to read a xenophobic, homophobic and generally ill-written rag then you can't go far wrong with the Daily Mail. Indeed Stephen Fry has written about the pride he felt when handed a 'Hated by the Daily Mail' badge. But today's offering is a particular gem, which in one article shows their poor reporting, and their obvious disdain for anyone outside their own people. (By 'their own', read white, middle class Brits)

The kind of understated reporting you could expect from the Mail

As I tend to steer clear of the Daily Mail so as not to poison my mind, I found out about this story from Left Foot Forward, their post can be found here.

Recently, there was a report about the number of British people converting to Islam from the 'Faith Matters' group, and reported legitimately in the Independent, which showed that the number converting each year has doubled in the last ten years. Their estimate put the figure of Muslim converts living in Britain at as high as 100,000, with 5,000 more being added each year.

Whilst the Independent looked at the figures and had a responsible discussion about why people might be choosing to convert to Islam, the Daily Mail went for a rather different tack. Pronouncing that 'some' (although we're never told who, I assume they mean Daily Mail editors?) amount this increase to the 'Islamification' of Britain, and as an example of Islam showing two women wearing Niqabs, despite the majority of converts objecting to wearing them.

As shown by LFF, if you actually look at the figures, this 'Islamification' means an annual increase in Muslim numbers of 0.0032% a year, and a doubling of the Muslim population every 213 years. Hardly a rapid increase is it?

Furthermore, the term 'Islamification' is never explained, conveniently allowing the racist and xenophobic amongst their readership to project on it their own meanings. It's exactly this kind of irresponsible reporting that fuels the likes of the racist EDL and BNP who are always keen to seize upon and misrepresent any statistic they can get their hands on.

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No-one mentioned on this blog is real, even me maybe, unless they have given permission to be included. All patients, illnesses and places are mere figments of my imagination or have been altered enough so as not be accurate to any real person.

It might seem a bit high-brow to have this but I've been informed by the powers at be that the blog has to have one because of the patient contact on my course.